Lao Cai aims for 35 percent of communes named new-style rural areas

Lao Cai province aims to have 50 communes, or nearly 35 percent of the total number, and one district recognized as new-style rural localities by 2020.

A new road being built in Sin Cheng commune, Lao Cai province - Source: VNA

The northern mountainous province set the goals at a meeting on December 29 to review the five-year implementation of the national target program on building new-style rural areas, initiated by the Government in 2010 to boost rural regions of Vietnam.

To those ends, it will focus on developing production activities to raise local income, building roads, maintaining infrastructure, promoting civilized lifestyles and traditional identity preservation, improving environmental hygiene, and ensuring rural security and order, local officials said.

The new countryside building program has given a facelift to rural areas of Lao Cai in terms of infrastructure, material and spiritual life, environment and security. Notably, roads to the center of all communes have been asphalted or concreted.

Twenty of the 143 communes, or 13.9 percent, have satisfied all 19 criteria of the program so far.

The criteria cover infrastructure, production, living standards, income and culture, among others. A district must have at least 75 percent of its communes meeting all the 19 requirements in order to receive the title of new rural district.

As many as 1,300 communes, or 14.5 percent of the total, were recognized as satisfying all the criteria as of November 2015, according to a report delivered by Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Cao Duc Phat at a Hanoi conference on December 8.

At the district level, 11 were accorded the status, including those in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Quang Ninh, Nam Dinh, Lam Dong, Dong Nai and Hau Giang.

Vietnam aims to have 50 percent of all communes nationwide meet all the criteria by the end of 2020./.